[Q] I have not included in these pages actual quotations from German authors illustrative of the national characteristics they so richly display. Such material may be found in abundance in the many books upon Germany which have appeared since the beginning of the war. The inclusion of it here would therefore have been superfluous, and would have tended perhaps to distract attention from the more general aspects of the subject which are the main objects of this study. During the process of final revision I am, however, tempted to add a single illustration which happens just to have caught my eye as being a representative and not at all an extreme example of the national arrogance I refer to above. In an article on “The German Mind” by Mr. John Buchan I find the following quotations from a Professor Werner Sombart, of Berlin:― “When the German stands leaning on his mighty sword, clad in steel from his sole to his head, whatsoever will may, down below, dance around his feet, and the intellectuals and the learned men of England, France, Russia, and Italy may rail at him and throw mud. But in his lofty repose he will not allow himself to be disturbed, and he will reflect in the sense of his old ancestors in Europe: _Oderint dum metuant_.” “We must purge from our soul the last fragments of the old ideal of a progressive development of humanity. . . . The ideal of humanity can only be understood in its highest sense when it attains its highest and richest development in particular noble nations. These for the time being are the representatives of God’s thought on earth. Such were the Jews. Such were the Greeks. And the chosen people of these centuries is the German people. . . . Now we understand why other peoples pursue us with their hatred. They do not understand us, but they are sensible of our enormous spiritual superiority. So the Jews were hated in antiquity because they were the representatives of God on earth” (“The German Mind,” _Land and Water_, November 6, 1915). These passages are almost too good to be true, and give one some of the pleasure of the collector who finds a perfect specimen. Here we have the gusto in childish and banal metaphor, the conception of the brutal conqueror’s state as permanently blissful—the colonizing principle of Prussia—the naïve generalizations from history, the confident assumption of any characteristic which appears desirable in morals or religion, the impenetrable self-esteem, and I think we should add the intense and honest conviction.